Living Room Sizes

Start with where you sit

Most living room questions come back to one measurement: the distance from your main seat to the wall you're looking at. It decides how big a TV can be before it feels like too much, and how far above your eye line it can hang. Measure it once, from where your eyes are when you sit, and keep the number handy.

A tape measure and a second pair of hands are all you need. Measure straight ahead, round to the nearest inch, and write it down in feet and inches. Every calculator here also takes meters and centimeters if that's what your tape shows.

The TV: size first, then height

Pick the size before the spot on the wall. The TV size calculator turns your seating distance into the screen sizes that fit, by how much of your view each screen fills, and checks them against the sizes TVs are actually sold in. It also works the other way, if you already have the TV and want to know where the sofa should go.

Then hang it at the right height. The TV mounting height calculator puts the middle of the screen at your eye level when you sit, the most comfortable height, and shows where the bottom and top of the screen land. If a console, dresser or mantel sits under the TV, it moves the TV up just enough to clear it and tells you how far above your eyes the screen ends up.

Art above the sofa: width first, then height

Look for art or a mirror about two-thirds to three-quarters as wide as the furniture below it. The wall art size calculator turns the width of your sofa, bed, console or open wall into the width to shop for, and checks the standard frame and canvas sizes against it. Above a long sofa, the answer is often wider than any standard frame, and the calculator says so, with the alternatives.

Once you have the piece, the picture hanging height calculator tells you where the nail or hook goes: the center of the art at gallery height on an open wall, a short gap above the sofa back, or the same height above each step on a stair wall. It works from the frame's height and where its hanger sits, so the mark you make is the one the hook needs.

For several frames, the gallery wall layout generator arranges them as one group, sized to the furniture and hung at the same height, and prints a map with every nail measured from the floor.

Color: start from one you love

Balance a room with the 60-30-10 rule: one color on most of the room, a second on the big pieces and an accent on the small things. The room color palette generator starts from a color you already have, a paint chip, your sofa or a favorite pillow, and finds the other two on the color wheel. It shows them in a sketch of the room and gives you the hex codes to take to the paint store.

Curtains: the rod first, then the length

Curtains look best on a rod that's wider and higher than the window, so they stack beside the glass when they're open. The curtain size calculatorworks out the rod's length and how high to mount it, then the standard curtain length that ends where you want it, just above the floor, breaking on it or at the sill, and how many panels to buy for the fullness you like.

A new couch: check the door before you buy

A couch that looks right in the room still has to get through the front door, the hallway and the door into the room. The couch fit calculator compares the couch's depth, height and diagonal depth with each door's clear opening, and its length with the space behind the door, and says which way to carry it: upright, on its back, tilted or stood on end.

The rug: the size that holds the room together

Rugs are sold in a short list of standard sizes that jump in big steps, so it pays to check the size before you order. The rug size calculator starts from your room and your sofa, with the front legs on the rug or the rug in front of it, and picks the standard size that leaves bare floor at the walls. It also sizes a rug under a bed or a dining table.

Lighting and a ceiling fan

A living room needs general light for the whole room and a lamp wherever you read. The room lumens calculator turns the room's size into the lumens to plan for and the number of bulbs that add up to them, with more for a tall ceiling or dark walls.

Overhead, the ceiling fan size calculator picks the blade span for the floor area and the downrod for your ceiling, and the chandelier size calculator sizes a light fixture for the room when there's no table under it.

How these tools work

Each calculator states the rule it uses and the assumptions behind it, right on the page under "How we calculate." The result is a starting point you can adjust to your room. Where a store size matters, the calculators show the standard sizes you can buy next to the ideal number.

Everything runs in your browser: the numbers you type stay on your device. Use Copy link to save a result or send it to someone helping you shop.